There are over 202,000 dental professionals in the US alone. This number only continues to rise as dentistry becomes a career path of choice for many people, and the need for dental work is steadily growing. This competition doesn't make things any easier for anyone starting their business in the dentistry field.
Many industries are embracing technological advances, and dentistry is no exception. In fact, new technologies and tools facilitate the transition of traditional dental practices into the high-tech industry that can satisfy even the most sophisticated patient's needs. The key is to find a vendor who understands how dentists work and can provide digital health expertise building web & mobile solutions that are not only HIPAA-compliant but tailored specifically for you.
In this article, we'll look at the benefits of digital solutions in dentistry, the four most popular tools to achieve better efficiency, and the main challenges that they can solve for your clinic and help you as a dental solo practitioner.
Digital Dentistry Benefits
Digital dentistry offers many benefits to patients and dentists. Some of the most notable are:
- Enhanced efficiency and accuracy. With computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) software, dentists can digitally design dentures with precise measurements, ensuring an optimal fit for the patient. The ability to make real-time adjustments and visualize the final result before production greatly reduces the chances of errors and the need for remakes.
- Fast changes and adaptations. In traditional approaches, alterations to dental restorations or prosthetics often involve time-consuming manual adjustments or remakes. However, with digital technology, adjustments can be made swiftly and accurately.
- Quick transmission of scans for verification. Digital dentistry allows for seamless communication between dental clinics and laboratories. With the click of a button, scans and digital impressions can be sent electronically to the dental lab for verification, even while the patient remains in the dental chair. It eliminates the need for physical transportation.
- Improved patient comfort. Traditional methods, such as taking impressions using putty-like materials, often caused discomfort, gagging, or a sense of claustrophobia for patients. However, digital impressions eliminate the need for physical impressions using intraoral scanners to capture precise digital replicas of the oral cavity. This non-invasive approach reduces patient discomfort and anxiety, providing a more pleasant experience during dental procedures.
Additionally, digital solutions allow for a greater degree of customization like changing colors or textures, allowing patients to have a more personalized and satisfactory outcome.
4 Software Solutions for Digital Workflow in Dentistry
Let's take a look at the four main solutions for improving dental workflow:
1. Imaging and Diagnostic Software
Imaging and diagnostic software that integrates with dental equipment such as digital X-ray systems or cone beam computed tomography (CT) machines is an option for simplifying your workflow. Your team can use this type of software to acquire, store, and analyze images digitally, eliminating the need for physical film or images.
Benefits of imaging and diagnostic software include:
- eliminating the need to manually scan films into your computer system;
- allowing you to share data across multiple locations in real-time;
- increasing patient safety by reducing exposure time during exams.
Those are only a few of the advantages of implementing diagnostic software.
2. CAD/CAM Software
CAD/CAM software is a computer-aided design program that combines the functions of CAD and CAM, which allows you to design your restorations digitally. CAD/CAM dentistry has become more popular in recent years because it offers many benefits over traditional methods, including increased accuracy and efficiency of production. When choosing a program for your practice or lab, consider these factors:
- Compatibility with other systems used in your office, such as implant systems. You want to make sure any new software will integrate seamlessly with existing technologies so that workflow doesn't get slowed down by having multiple programs running simultaneously on different machines at different locations within the same building.
- User-friendliness. This may seem obvious, but many people forget how important this is when working with something as complicated as dental restorations. If employees aren't able to understand how certain features work, then they won’t use them.
3. Practice Management Software
Practice management software is another way to improve workflow and efficiency. This type of software offers features like appointment scheduling, patient record management, treatment planning, billing, and reporting. The tools can automate administrative tasks, reduce paperwork, and improve organization overall.
4. Teledentistry Platforms
The teledentistry industry becomes increasingly popular among dental professionals. It's expected to reach $4.8 billion with an annual 16.1 percent growth by 2030.
Teledentistry provides benefits like improving patient accessibility, saving time for doctors and patients, and improving continuity of care. A good teledentistry platform should allow virtual consultations, video conferencing, and remote monitoring. By making your patients feel at ease during treatment, regardless of where they are, teledentistry can improve trust and your relationships with them.
Dentistry Workflow Challenges
Here are the main challenges of dentistry workflow:
Paperwork Data Sharing
As a dentist, you need to know the treatment plan overall of each patient and whether they've paid for them. You need to be able to pass this information along to other healthcare professionals who are treating your patients, like when referring them for further treatment.
A paper-based system requires handling various documentation like patient records, insurance documents, and treatment schedules. All this data requires system storage in the right format, following privacy laws, and is backed up regularly so that it can be retrieved if needed.
Data Security and Privacy
Dental practices are especially vulnerable to data breaches because they may store patients' SSNs or credit card information on computers. To meet data privacy regulations like HIPAA in the US, it's important to implement best practices for security and authentication.
Workflow Integration
The transition from capturing digital impressions to designing and producing restorations often requires process adjustments and efficient coordination among team members. Working in a multisystem environment with no real-time communication among systems and where new processes must be developed for each system before integration can be especially challenging.
How to Choose the Right Solution?
Digital dentistry has revolutionized the process of denture design, offering unprecedented levels of accuracy and efficiency. Investing in the right software is essential if you want to reap its benefits, but it will be wasted if not properly implemented or maintained. There are many digital solutions these days that will improve your service and the level of patient care. And it’s your main task (and challenge) to choose those that will work best for your dentistry business.